They then fail him completely when he enters into his passion and death; all of them deserted him. The Lord calls each of us to be a good shepherd in some shape or form to others. The gospel reading acknowledges that even though the light has come into the world, some have shown that they prefer darkness to the light. Jesus, the light of God, seeks us draw us to himself so that we may have life and have it to the full. We have all been born of water and the Spirit through baptism but we need to keep opening ourselves ever more completely to the presence of the Spirit within us. These cookies are necessary to let our website work. She died at the age of thirty three. This content is blocked. All he asks is that we keep listening to his voice and keep trying to follow him. The experience of Thomas shows us that religious doubt need not keep us from the Lord or the church; Thomas story suggests also that great doubt can be the prelude to great faith. In the city of Antioch, the gospel was being preached to pagans, and they were responding in large numbers. Welcome to A Catholic Moment! The fourth evangelist is also clear that Gods initiative needs our response if it is to be effective. The Word of God is alive and active and will transform each of us if we open ourselves to receive what God wants to give us. One of the tasks of life for each of us as disciples of the Lord is to try and listen to the particular call that the Lord is addressing to me here and now. Reflections on Daily Readings 2022 Introduction We have compiled a comprehensive set of reflections on the readings, covering the entire year. During this special year focus will be placed on the vocation of all Christians as expressed by witness, love and service and as lived out in the specific call of marriage, ordained priesthood, religious life and the single life. All Documents Quizes Easter celebrates Gods radical faithfulness, his extraordinary mercy. We are not left to ourselves in trying to distinguish the gate that is Jesus from the many other gates that that lead us in very different directions. The Lord will provide in abundance the means for us to take the path that leads to life. We are all being encouraged to see ourselves as belonging to that group. Nicodemus, a leading Pharisee, was one such example in the gospel of John. The closer we come to him, the more we realize how deeper our relationship with him could be. Ananias heard the Lord speak to him, directing him to where Saul lived. Clearly the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd that we find in todays gospel reading spoke to Christians from the earliest days of the church. Light exposes wrong doing. The first reading tells one of the great stories that we find in the New Testament, the story of the conversion of Saint Paul. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. In the evening the disciples went down to the shore of the lake and got into a boat to make for Capernaum on the other side of the lake. If his fellow disciples were full of Easter faith, he was full of doubt. The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his Flesh to eat? Jesus said to them, Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you. Our calling is to allow the Spirit of God to be the driving force of our life, as it was the driving force of Jesus life. As they prayed, they were filled with the Holy Spirit and in the strength of that Spirit they proclaimed the word of God courageously. Today, vocations Sunday, reminds us that we all have a vocation in that very fundamental sense. With the rapid expansion of new means of communication in recent decades we can be made much more aware of these various calls on us. Before he began his missionary career the Lord gave Paul this profound experience of his dependence on others, and, ultimately, on the Lord. - 6:00 pm Dinner. That is why he taught us to pray, Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. In the world of Jesus, there were no sheepdogs to do the shepherds work for him. The shepherd enters the sheepfold through the gate. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. The hired man, since he is not the shepherd and the sheep do not belong to him, abandons the sheep as soon as he sees a wolf coming, Jesus said: In all truth I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold through the gate, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a bandit. Philips response to Jesus showed that he felt overwhelmed by the problem. In fact, Jesus wants our relationship with him to be as close as his relationship with God the Father. This conflict in the church required the Twelve to clarify for themselves and for the other members of the church what their priorities were to be, We will continue to devote ourselves to prayer and to the service of the word. Yes, he desperately wants us to have life and to have it to the full. Are not his sisters all with us? Seeing the risen Lord was enough to dispel his doubt. But I told you that although you have seen me, you do not believe. If the wind is mysterious and beyond our control, the Spirit of God is even more mysterious and beyond our control. What they went on to say to the stranger showed that they had lost all hope. The church is the community of those who believe in and love the Lord, without having seen the Lord in the way Thomas and the other eyewitnesses did. Indeed, in the language Jesus spoke and in the language in which the gospels were written the one word could be translated either wind or Spirit. The light of Gods love shines through the gospel and God passionately desires that this light would shine upon all, in every time and place, just as the earthly sun shines on all. This being born of the Spirit will take more than nine months, the period of human birth. At other times we may find ourselves in the role of Philip, helping someone to take a new step on their journey towards Jesus. That is not to say that Jesus teaching is not demanding. Whenever we take on some new enterprise, or go in a new direction of some kind, we will sometimes find ourselves battling with the equivalent of a strong wind and a rough sea, perhaps with a kind of darkness coming over us. Jesus exclaimed, I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. He saw in his relationship with the risen Lord the completion of his Jewish faith. Then he said to them, You foolish men! The Sanhedrin were the influential group of Jewish leaders most opposed to Jesus, but Gamaliel, a respected member of that group, shows a degree of openness to the preaching of the apostles that was not typical of the group as a whole. This Barnabas proceeded to do, urging the whole church to remain faithful to the Lord. Click on the underlined name below for the daily reflections. When they drew near to the village to which they were going, he made as if to go on; but they pressed him to stay with them. The gospels indicatethat Joseph was a skilled labourer. These cookies may track your personal data. Just as Jesus was always in communion with his Father so he wants us to be always in communion with him. It is the light of God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son, in the language of the gospel reading. The church has been grieving this past week since the death of the Pope. Nowadays we can harness the wind to generate electricity, but there is so much about the wind which is beyond our control and understanding. Is not his mother the woman called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Jude? Whenever we strive to be faithful to the Lords ways, whenever we seek to witness to him, we can always be assured of the Lords confirming presence. We need to open ourselves to that bigger story, to Gods story, and when we do we might find that, as was the case with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, our hearts begin to burn within us. His investment in us will always be greater than our investment in him. He showed them his wounds on his hands and his side, signs of that greater love which led him to lay down his life for them. His physical blindness perhaps suggests his spiritual blindness up to this moment. Perth/Singapore/Philippines: 7am; Timor-Leste/Tokyo: 8am; New Zealand: 12pm; Los Angeles: Thursday 4pm; New York/Toronto: Thursday 7pm] to prayerfully reflect on the Gospel of the coming Sunday. Having told the story to each other, the two disciples told it to the stranger who joined them on the road. God will find many ways of bringing us to his Son, if we allow ourselves to be drawn. The artist does not depict the risen Lord, only the impact of the risen Lord on Paul. In the words of todays second reading, we can find ourselves being plagued by all sorts of trials in the season of Easter as much as in any other season. The gospel reading is suggesting to us that on our own journey, our journey of faith, we depend on the Lord to reach our destination. The helplessness and weakness of Paul is conveyed in the first reading by the blind Paul having to be led by the hand into the city of Damascus, a city he had expected to be riding into confidently and authoritatively. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. the Son of Man who is in heaven; The Lord recognizes in that relationship between sheep and shepherd something of his own relationship to us. In the first reading we have a good example of someone who bears witness to Jesus by his works. This is the carpenters son, surely? Something of a storm was brewing in this young church, which became the mother church, because it was from the church in Jerusalem that the other churches were founded. Saint Paul expresses that truth in these terms: Gods power is made perfect in weakness. The disciples now understood that those who put Jesus to death did not have the last word, and would never have the last word. unless a man is born from above, The Lord needs what we have, even if it seems slight to us, and he can accomplish far more than we could imagine with the little we have if we make ourselves available to him. We reflect deeply on all that Jesus said and did, on the whole of his life, on his death, resurrection and ascension, because we know that God has spoken the most powerful and clearest word he could ever speak through Jesus. I firmly believe that churches should be open as often and for as long as possible. Even though the Pope had been seriously ill for several months, the news of his death yesterday evening came as a great shock and has caused great sadness both within the church and beyond it. Other days we have a warm wind from the south. The gospel says that they were talking together about all that had happened. The temptation to lock away our faith out of fear can be very strong. What is of God will also endure. He has done and is doing everything he can to make possible this intimate relationship between him and ourselves. We live our lives in response to calls of various kinds. We look forward to that eternal day when we will see the Lord, face to face. The light which shone from the risen Lord and from the preaching of the Easter gospel could not be extinguished by the powers of darkness. It is Paul, the former persecutor of the church, who reminds us in his letters that the bread that we break and the cup that we bless in the Eucharist is a communion with the body and blood of Christ. Jesus said: I am the good shepherd. Each new day is a day of grace and opportunity to reflect. We can only surrender to the Spirit; we invite the Spirit to lead and guide us, to shape and mould us. It shows Paul prostrate on the ground beside his horse, looking upwards with a light shining upon him. All of these statements claim that Jesus has a unique relationship with God. Catherine stood out as a beacon of light in a dark time in Europe and in the church. His presence at the heart of the storm can help to ensure that moments of crisis in the church can also be times of new life. The message of the Lord working with and confirming his disciples is present in both readings. Todays first reading suggests that such listening to Gods word will often entail a struggle to understand it. They had rowed three or four miles when they saw Jesus walking on the lake and coming towards the boat. Those who have been through an experience of loss know how therapeutic it can be to tell the story of the last days of a loved one. The image of Jesus as the gate emphasizes more what we must do in response to all that Jesus has done and is doing for us. In the passage of Johns gospel that follows our gospel reading, Jesus identifies himself as the good shepherd. As he says in his second letter to the Corinthians, the love of Christ urges us on. Josephs faithfulness to his task created the space for Jesus to be faithful to his calling. Elsewhere in the gospels, Jesus says, Give and it will be given to you. We are all called to be mystics in action, people who are called into an intimate relationship with God and his Son and then sent to live out of that relationship by bringing Gods rest and loving presence to all who are in need of it. He says in that gospel reading, anyone who enters through me will be safe, he will go freely in and out and be sure of finding pasture. what is born of the flesh is flesh; It was only when a member of the church of Damascus, Ananias, laid his hands on Paul in prayer that his sight was restored. He discerned that Paul who had recently encountered the risen Lord just outside Damascus would be the ideal person to give leadership to the church in Antioch. The Lord spoke of himself as the good shepherd. God the Father draws all people to his Son and our coming to Jesus is in response to the drawing of the Father. The gospel reading puts before us some very striking statements about Jesus. There were two other reactions in the story. At every Mass we first have the Liturgy of the Word, and then the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Coming as he was from Jerusalem, he was clearly drawn to the Jewish faith. We take a tentative step in his direction and the Lord calls on us to take a more generous step. There is a need for different groups of people to take responsibility for different ministries. A lot of our lives are lived in response to various calls that are made upon us. Like Saint Paul, we can find ourselves saying, I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Every day we try to discern what we need to do to give expression to our desire to take Jesus as our gate. The good shepherd takes on the role not primarily to get something out of it, but to give something in it. In the first reading, Peter assures the churches he is addressing that even though they are having to suffer for their faith, the Lord will see that all is well again; he will confirm, strengthen and support you. He had a vision of himself as the shepherd of one flock, one community of disciples from a whole variety of backgrounds. Practical Carmelite spirituality for your daily life. When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world. Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone. Was it not ordained, he asked, that the Christ should suffer and so enter into his glory? As the stranger told his story, something happened within the two disciples. From that moment he knew that Jesus was calling to announce this message to all, especially to the pagans. The Lord accommodated himself to Thomas doubt, meeting Thomas demand to put his hand into the wounds of the crucifixion. Breathing the Holy Spirit upon them, he sent them out to reveal Gods merciful love to all, those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven. Lectio Divina - Carmelites We try to listen to his voice, especially as it comes to us in the words of the gospels, of the New Testament as a whole, and, indeed, in all of the Scriptures. They bring us hope in our despondency and strength in our weakness. We recognize that in and through the Eucharist we enter into communion with the Lord, and with each other, in a special way. She spent the last two years of her life in Rome in prayer, pleading on behalf of the cause of Pope Urban VI and the unity of the Church. The light of Jesus, rather, is the inviting light of Gods love, calling out to us to come and to allow ourselves to be bathed in this light, and promising those who do so that they will share in Gods own life, both here and now and also beyond death. The gate of the sheepfold provided access both into and out of the enclosure, enabling the sheep to pass out of the enclosure to green pasture and to come back into the enclosure again for safety and protection. Having listened to the Lords story from the Scriptures, they pressed him to stay with them, because he appeared to be going on, It is nearly evening they said and the day is almost over. Someone from the nationalist community would tell the story in one way; someone from the unionist community would tell the story in a very different way. but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already, They saw the Lord; they now knew that the crucified one had been raised from the dead, as he promised. If what the gospel reading says is true then how we respond to Jesus, the one whom God has sent into the world, is of enormous significance. Jesus is always calling us too to take some new step on our faith journey. If there is something mysterious about every human birth, the kind of birth that Jesus speaks about is even more mysterious. even if his testimony is not accepted; Yet, he is always with us at such moments, as he was with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. In this mornings first reading people ask, Is this not the carpenters son? The term translated carpenter might better be translated craftsman or artisan. The wind blows wherever it pleases; unless he is drawn by the Father who sent me, That same early tradition places Mark in the church of Rome, the city where Peter was crucified, the city where the church experienced the first real persecution lead by the Roman state. Todays readings remind us that prayerful attentiveness to Gods word needs to be at the heart of the churchs life, and of our own lives as individual disciples. Yet, the gospel reading this morning assures us that in trying to answer the question, What must we do?, we are not thrown back on our own resources alone. Martin Hogan continues to write many books on the Gospel Readings for each day of the Catholic Liturgical Year. That is why we take Jesus so seriously, why we pay such close attention to what he does and says, to his life, death and resurrection. It is a great gift to be able to recognize the good that the Lord is doing through someone or some group and then to encourage it along. He respected where they were on their journey. When Jesus says in todays gospel reading that, as the good shepherd, I lay down my life for my sheep, he is saying that he lays down his life for each one of us individually. Some days we have a cold wind from the north or the east. God the Father is always drawing us to his Son, as he drew the Ethiopian to Jesus through Philip. There are several stories in the gospels of people who go looking for Jesus. He had fed the multitude in the wilderness; this had made a great impression on them. It was on the cross and in his resurrection that Jesus was lifted up, and it was above all at that moment that the light of Gods love shone most brightly. If we are to come into that abundant life that Jesus came to give us, we must do so by passing through him. Unspectacular Beautiful Fidelity Yet the gospel ends (the shorter ending) with the young man calling on the faithful women to tell the other disciples that Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee where they will see him. When Jesus declares in todays gospel reading, my yoke is easy and my burden light, he is saying that his teaching, his understanding of Gods will, is not something burdensome. In the gospel reading, Jesus declares, whoever eats me will draw life from me. This Easter season is a good time us all to pray, Stay with us Lord. In the gospel reading Jesus makes a comparison between the wind and the Holy Spirit. The first reading from the first letter of Peter and the gospel reading from the gospel of Mark have a theme in common. He wanted to listen to their story in all its sadness and despondency. Yet, we are not just passive sheep. He sent them out to continue his mission, as the Father sent me, so am I sending you. Friday. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. Yes, Jesus fed them in the wilderness, but he has something more to give them, not just physical bread but a deeper and more enduring form of nourishment. We are not strangers to the Lord; he knows us deeply, better than we know ourselves. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they began to be afraid. We do not take the Spirit where we want it to go; the Spirit takes us where God wants us to go. The agent of Gods life, the risen Lord, had triumphed over the agents of death. On Good Friday, humanity had crucified the one whom we believe to be Gods love made flesh. When Jesus says in this mornings gospel reading, I am the gate or I am the door, he was thinking of the gate or the door as an opening through which people could pass rather than as a barrier which prevented people from passing. Whenever two people share a significant experience together, they invariably talk about it together afterwards; they each tell their own story about what happened. Almost immediately, they arrived at their destination that they had just been struggling to reach. Once the risen Lord spoke to the disciples, they seem to have reached the shore they were making for immediately. In todays gospel reading, Jesus says, whoever comes to me I shall not turn away. as soon as he sees a wolf coming, Like Nicodemus, we all need to keep opening our lives more fully to the Spirit whom the risen Lord is always offering us, so that we can boldly proclaim by our lives the good news of his life, death and resurrection. As he says in his letter to the Galatians, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. All authentic love is life-giving, and Gods love, revealed in the coming of Jesus, is life-giving to an exceptional degree. Our Blessed Mother: The Queen of All Saints! There are various ways of practising Lectio Divina either individually or in groups but Guigo's description remains fundamental. Martin Hogan continues to write many books on the Gospel Readings for each day of the Catholic Liturgical Year. He wants us to go freely in and out through him. Cleopas began to tell their story. In the opening verses of his gospel, John the evangelist declared, the Word became flesh and lived among us. If we come to him, having initially turned away, he will not turn us away because, as he declares in the gospel reading, it is his Fathers will that whoever sees the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life. This two-fold movement of coming to Jesus and going forth in his strength expresses well the contemplative and active dimension of the Christian life. They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. This is what we find stated very clearly in this mornings gospel reading, which declares that Jesus comes from above or from heaven. Jesus goes on to state that he gives himself to us as food and drink so that we might draw life from him. As a sailing boat needs the wind, we need the Spirit at our back if we are to make our way towards the Lord. On our pilgrimage of life, the Spirit is always at our back. The Bible is the Word of God which is always alive and active, always new. We struggle to bring our prayers of petition into line with what the Lord wants to give us. I tell you most solemnly, In the gospel reading Jesus speaks of things of this world and heavenly things. Like the wind, the Spirit blows where it pleases; it blows where the Lord pleases. After a powerful, ecstatic experience of Christ in 1374, she commenced her public role, mediating in an armed conflict between the city of Florence and the Avignon-based papacy. On the one hand, he felt the strong desire to be in union with God; on the other hand, he felt an almost violent tugging away from any contact with God. Having listened to the two disciples, the stranger spoke to them. The relationship between the shepherd and his sheep was more immediate than it is today. Reflections on Daily Readings 2022 October 30th - November 26th, 2022 October 30 - November 5, 2022 Ordinary Time - The Thirty-First Week | Readings: Sunday Cycle C; Weekday Cycle 2.
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